Prevalence of Self-Reported Muscle Pain Among Statin Users From National Guard Hospital, Riyadh

Abstract

Background Statin, a hydroxymethylglutaryl-coenzyme A reductase inhibitor, is one of the commonly used lipid-lowering drugs that is used for lowering lipid levels in the body. Muscle pain is a commonly reported adverse effect of statins, yet little is known about the prevalence of muscle pain and statin use in the general population. Methods The cross-sectional study was conducted in National Guard Hospital, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. All study subjects were adult statin users aged 18 years old or above. A total of 313 patients were included in the study. The study was conducted based on a questionnaire distributed among patients according to inclusion and exclusion criteria. Results Among 313 statin users, patients underwent cardiac catheterization (39, 12.5%), stress test (62; 19.8%), percutaneous coronary intervention (three; 1.0%), and coronary artery bypass graft (six, 1.9%), while 203 patients didn’t have any intervention (64.9%). Most of the study subjects were on atorvastatin (139; 44.4%). The prevalence of muscle pain was 73.5%; 95% CI = (68.4% - 78.1%). The most common sites of pain were lower limb pain (160; 51.1%), upper limb pain (145; 46.3%), and trunk pain (96; 30.7%). The common types of pain were joint pain (52; 16.6%), muscle weakness (51; 16.3%), muscle aches (43; 13.7%), and muscle cramps (41; 13.1%); and patients who reported that they stopped statin at some point because of muscle pain were 92 (29.4%). Conclusion Statins are important for managing and preventing ischemic heart diseases. Our study found that muscle pain is highly associated with statin use with a prevalence of 73.5%, which causes many patients to tend to stop taking their medication. Therefore, preventing the side effects by adjusting the proper dose or switching to another type of statin for high-risk patients will help them to continue using the drug. Also, it is important to rule out secondary causes of myopathy such as physical activity, fracture, thyroid dysfunction, or infection.

TANGO2-related rhabdomyolysis symptoms are associated with abnormal autophagy functioning

“…Supporting that, tango2 KD led to reduced evoked swimming parameters in zebrafish, which is consistent with recent studies showing a myopathy-like phenotype in zebrafish upon tango2 knockout 15,16 . We also show that incubation of tango2 KD zebrafish with atorvastatin, a drug known to induce RM 33,48 including in zebrafish 31,49 , exacerbates the motor deficits observed in tango2 KD, thus confirming the specificity of tango2 KD phenotype. Furthermore, we corroborate in vivo that the RM-like phenotype induced by tango2 loss of function correlates with impaired autophagy function, as demonstrated by the decreased degradation of autophagosomes containing exogenous LC3 and by the decreased levels of LC3 proteins in tango2 KD zebrafish.…”